


Demon Spawn

by Tarlan



Category: Darklight (2004)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-31
Updated: 2009-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will decides that Lilith's demon spawn, Anders Raeborne, deserves a chance of redemption too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Demon Spawn

**Author's Note:**

> Written for smallfandomfest FEST05

Will watched as the creature battered against the walls of the cell, its leathery wings beating the air and tongue lashing out in anger but to no great effect. The walls were made of solid steel and the single large window pane was of highly toughened glass, built to withstand more than this creature could throw at it. Eventually, the Demonicos began to calm, talons scoring the wall but barely making a scratch as it began to pace until, finally, it stopped and sank down on its haunches in the center of the cell. The leathery wings wrapped around its sinewy torso, and it bowed its head, revealing the damage where Lilith had sliced open its skull in an attempt to decapitate it earlier that day.

The scientists had only needed its head. They had needed the Red Plague producing part of its brain in order to produce a vaccine but, like most demon spawn, it had not been killed by their surgical incisions. The Darklight running through its blood had repaired damage made by normal materials.

Will recalled his second encounter with it, emptying shotgun blast after blast into it with little impact. It had leaped down from the rafters and grabbed him after knocking Lilith aside, talons sinking into the back of his neck, into the brain stem. Somehow, it had managed to communicate through him to Lilith, stealing his thoughts from his head, laying bare Will's feelings for the female demon that had slain his only son.

Discovering that the Demonicos was not some mindless monster in demon form should have abhorred Will, for it meant it was capable of understanding its actions. Instead, Will had felt a stirring of compassion when he realized that it could feel confused, that it could wonder why Lilith was fighting it when they were one in the same, made of the same Darklight. Yet Lilith had insisted she was nothing like it. She had insisted that she wasn't controlled by the urge to destroy any living thing that came within her grasp. Perhaps that had become true over these past years, but how could three years of amnesia and a few days of contrition negate the acts of violence stretching back to the dawn of time? How could such a short time atone for all the names written on the memorial war in The Faith's headquarters?

How could it absolve her for the death of his son at her hand?

As the fight drained out of the Demonicos, it slowly evolved back into human form, revealing the battered naked body of Anders Raeborne. The fight with Lilith had taken its toll on Raeborne, her Darklight-infused weapons scoring it deeply where normal weapons had failed. He looked small and vulnerable, bruised arms wrapped around his skinned knees, and blood congealing along his ribcage, and from his temple into the hairline.

He looked tired and defeated.

Will knew all of Raeborne's history. From the file it seemed that all Raeborne had ever wanted was to know his father's pride in him, and to gain what he deemed his rightful accolades for all his work towards a longevity treatment - the so-called fountain of youth. Although he could not condone Raeborne's methods, Will could understand his grievances, how he had been used by his so-called partners before being cast aside. He saw how they had publicly condemned and denounced Raeborne's methods while quietly building on his work for their own fame and reward. They had been his accomplices and yet they had made him their scapegoat.

On reflection, he could see how easily it had been for someone like Chapel to manipulate Raeborne into becoming an instrument of destruction; a mere pawn in Chapel's plans to force Judgment Day upon humanity. Chapel had called Raeborne petty, seeking only personal revenge and, perhaps, Raeborne had never realized that he would be fulfilling a different prophesy and would become the source of the Red Plague.

What Chapel hadn't countered on was Raeborne turning on him once he learned the truth; that he'd been used and would be cast out again once Chapel had finished with him.

Unlike Chapel, Will had not allowed hatred and grief to consume him, to blind him to the possibility that Lilith could atone for her millennia of sins. In comparison, this Demonicos was a mere child with far less blood on its hands than Lilith, and if she could find redemption then why not this fledgling demon too?

When Will reached for the door, intending to enter, he felt fingers close around his forearm and turned to The Prefect.

"He can never be wholly human again."

From being cast aside, Raeborne was now cast down, as much demon spawn as human.

"Neither can Lilith but if she can find forgiveness then why not him too," he replied softly, having found the strength within him to make the first small steps towards forgiving her.

The Prefect let go of his arm and smiled, nodding in acceptance of his words. The door locked behind Will, leaving him alone in the cell with Raeborne. He watched as the man raised his head, blue eyes darkened in anger and pain, and his mouth a tight, crooked line that dipped at one corner.

"I remember you."

Will nodded, strangely pleased that he hadn't been some quickly forgotten body coming between Raeborne and Lilith during the fight.

"If you hated her so much then why did you help her against me?" Raeborne asked, voice filled with misery as well as anger.

"Why didn't you kill me?" Will countered. The Demonicos had shown little to no mercy to others so why had it allowed him to live?

He thought back to that moment when the Demonicos had grabbed hold of him, speaking through him. It could have easily snapped his neck or torn out his throat but, instead, it had simply shoved him aside and continued the attack on Lilith once it had failed to persuade her to join forces with it. On reflection, it could have killed Will on three separate occasions, easily, but had let him live. Even when Will was struck with its plague-delivering tongue, Will knew it had not been intentional. It had been aiming at Lilith but she had ducked aside and Will had simply been in the wrong place.

"Chapel was right. You are a petty man, wanting vengeance on those that had hurt you, but only on them. You were never a mass murderer, not intentionally."

Raeborne looked away, looking even more miserable. "It was all lies fed to my father, conspiring against me so they could steal all my work. None of them questioned my methods, or the trials... not until my father found out. They even provided the test subjects, said they were terminal cases and had signed contracts for large sums of money for their families."

"The...creatures in the cells?"

"The Lilith Strain would have cured them, and not just from the side effects of the previous experiments but from their terminal cancers too." His voice lowered. "It should have cured them too. I should have known Chapel had lied to me. Should have known that nothing came without a price."

He looked back up, directly into Will's eyes, giving a self-deprecating laugh.

"I won't survive long without more Darklight...and maybe that's for the best."

"Chapel lied about that too, and you must have known that or why else would you have considered killing the only pure source of what you needed to survive? Unless, deep down, you wanted to die."

He waited while Raeborne thought over his words, waited for a sign and found it when Raeborne sighed raggedly.

"If Lilith can be redeemed, then so can you. If you want it bad enough."

Blue eyes full of anguish lifted to meet Will's but in them Will thought he could also see a glimmer of hope. Perhaps it would be enough to give Anders Raeborne a second chance.

END


End file.
